Lecture 7

• Emotions


  • Feeling state, often caused by an event

  • Includes multiple components: expression, subjective evaluation, physiological arousal
• Affect


  collective term, says nothing about duration or content → can be either positive or negative, long or short, emotion or mood
• Emotion, mood, affect

  Image:

  
• Subjective well-being


  Cognitive (life satisfaction) and affective evaluations of life
• Quality of life


  Also has an objective component (living conditions, physical health, income, employment, etc.)
• Emotion regulation


  • Refers to all “processes by which we influence which emotions we have, when we have them, and how we experience and express them (Gross, 2002, p. 282)”

  • Plays a central role in well-being

  • Becomes more complex over the lifespan
• Avoidance


  “I won't go to the exam"
• Situation modification


  “I’ll practice extra before the exam” (problem solving) “I take someone with me to support me”
• Rumination


  “I distract myself by listening to music” (distraction) “I constantly think about how the exam and how scared I am”
• Reappraisal


  “I accept my feelings” (acceptance) “It has no consequences for my life if I fail”
• Suppression


  “I do not show my fear to others”
• Maladaptive strategies


  Rumination

  Suppression

  Avoidance

  → More psychopathology
• Adaptive strategies


  Problem-Solving

  Reassessment

  Acceptance

  → Less psychopathology
• Sometimes actually useful to suppress feeling because


  strategies are not inherently “good” or “bad” (depends on context)
• The development of emotions in infants image

  Image:

  
• • Biological basis, but also environmental influence (emotions in infants):


  • Children mirror emotional expressions of caregiver

  • Mothers respond selectively to their babies’ expressions → learning: infants are trained to show happy faces more often than grumpy or sad ones

  → Early emotion socialization: different shapes in different cultures
• Social referencing


  • Imitation of parents’ emotions and decision tool for how to behave in new situations, around 9 months
• Emotional communication:


  infants and young children learn to understand emotions and express them appropriately
• Emotion regulation in infants table 1

  Table 1

  
• Emotion regulation table 2


  Table 2:

  
• Emotions during childhood, further improvement of emotional competence:


  • Concept of mixed emotions

  • Mental time-travel: anticipation and recall of cognitive and

  emotional aspects of events, better understanding of

  emotions

  • Improved ability to suppress or hide negative emotional

  reactions (e.g., not showing sadness to parents)
• Emotion during childhood, more complex use of emotion regulation strategies:

  • Use of self-initiated strategies to focus feelings elsewhere

  • More effective emotion regulation through cognition (e.g., reappraisal)

  • Development of an ability to experience genuine empathy, truly

  understanding how another person feels

  • Emotional competence important predictor of social

  competence
• Children learn about rules for emotional behavior (emotional display rules)


  • Gap (+ awareness) between inner emotions and expressed emotions widens

  • Requires understanding of emotions and rules for emotional displays + skills for self-control
• Individualistic cultures disply rules

  Preference for self-directed emotions, encouragement for expression
• Collectivist cultures display rules


  Preference for emotions directed at others (e.g., empathy)
• Experience Sampling Method (ESM):

  • Multiple times a day

  • Example: “How happy do you feel right now?”
• Diary Study (“daily diary”):


  • Only one questionnaire at the end of the day, over the entire day

  • Example: “How happy did you feel today?”
• Stereotype of the moody teenager


  • More negative emotions, less positive emotions (intensity)

  • More extreme emotions and emotion fluctuations (variability/dynamics)
• Adolescents have different emotion regulation goals than adults (goal: e.g., do not avoid conflict) • Goals:


  • Broaden horizons

  • Acquire knowledge

  • Meet new people

  • Taking risks

  • Behavioral set of exploration: Accumulation

  of information in preparation for a future

  when these may be necessary
• Emotions in adulthood


  • Developmental changes continue through the adult years

  • Effort to create lifestyles that are emotionally satisfying, predictable, and manageable

  • by making decisions about an occupation, a life partner, and other circumstances (where do I want to live, do I want kids)
• Temporary dip in well-being adults


  • Life transitions (e.g., raising kids, losing loved ones) may bring stress and uncertainty

  • Social comparisons may put pressure on individuals (social clock

  theory)
• Challenges in older age

  ▪ Declining health and memory

  ▪ Last opportunities

  ▪ Confrontation with one’s own mortality

  ▪ Loss of one’s loved ones

  ▪ Loss of independence

  ▪ Loss of purpose, loneliness

  ▪ Financial penalties
• Emotions in older age

  • On average, positive emotions remain more stable and negative emotions become less frequent → better balance between positive and negative emotions
• Emotions in older age – Explanations for changes

  Older adults can detect and feel negative emotions – but they control the amount of time spent focusing on negative emotions

  Positivity bias (or negativity avoidance) A form of selective attention: Relatively more attention to, and better memory for, positive compared with negative information.

  • Brain regions involved in emotions (e.g., amygdala) degenerate less with age than the major brain regions involved in cognition (prefrontal cortex)
• Socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen)


  The approach of endings, due to aging or other (e.g., geographic relocations, severe illness) elicits motivational changes:

  • Emotionally meaningful goals are prioritized over exploration

  → Effects on preferences, social networks, and emotional

  experience

  → Positivity effect in cognitive processing of older adults:

  • Pay more attention to, better remember, and place more

  priority on positive than on negative information
• Emotional choices during older age


  Time horizons become shorter – goals change: Focus on goals that are realized during the very pursuit of the goal itself: meaning, satisfaction

  Goals:

  ▪Live in the moment

  ▪Know/see more clearly

  what’s important

  ▪Invest in sure things

  ▪Deepen relationships

  ▪Savor life
• Avoiding conflict behavior older adults

  ▪ prefer disengagement strategies to reduce

  emotional distress

  ▪ ignore or avoid conflict situation (not confronting

  others)

  ▪ feel less emotionally disturbed by applying

  disengagement strategies
• Selective narrowing of social networks older adults


  • Size of inner (inner) circle remains the same

  • Fewer relationships with people of outer circle → if they no longer lead to positive emotions - drop them

  • Emotional well-being goes up as networks are narrowed
• Better management of negative emotions, in comparison to younger adults, older adults …

  ▪ … move out of negative emotional states faster

  ▪ … are less emotionally reactive to stressors

  ▪ … engage less in destructive conflict strategies

  ▪ … find tense interpersonal situations less stressful